The Women and I
A heuristic that keeps me on point
So, I am always around women. I mean, I am the only guy in my house. At aKoma (my last startup), I was usually the only dude on the team. The wonderful gathering event Rouse, that I put together with Zain Verjee, Isha Sesay, and Suneeta Olympio…the attendees were all women, and then just me. I did emerging opportunity sessions in the last month for two women organizations in Atlanta, I was the only bobo allowed in the rooms.
I am a man. And for me, I am keenly self-aware of my flaws (limitations if you ask certain Chidi senior stakeholders) as a guy, and my inherent instincts as a man. I am viscerally attracted to women, an attraction that I am clear about and make no apologies for. I fully acknowledge when I am around beautiful, confident, powerful, elegant, regal, accomplished, funny, driven, cool women.
But at all times that acknowledgment is predominantly an internal one, and it usually kicks off a heuristic (not an algorithm) that has allowed me to navigate well in environments where I am around a plurality of women. That heuristic is front loaded by one constant.
Respect.
It is of utmost importance to me to respect every single woman that I encounter. Even when that contact is fleeting, the heuristic does not allow me to pass Go until i am secured and layered with as much respect for the woman/women and their situation as I have for myself ad my situation, if not more.
This respect gives me the lenses to see the women for exactly who they are—my family, my friends, my champions, my colleagues, my bosses, my employees, my students, my teachers, my pilots, my partners, my competition, my enablers, my obstacles, and so on. It gives me the proper toolkit and context to interact and engage with these women as my fellow humans, not as objects. That respect ensures that whatever base instincts may arise in me are tempered and re-engineered immediately not because they are not present, but because my inherent respect for women reinforces that those instincts are ultimately of no benefit to them or to me, have the potential to be quite harmful and toxic, and thus are best managed and contained as far away from our interaction(s) as possible.
I don’t even have to like you, but I will respect you as a woman.
Again, I have plenty of flaws. God knows I have some mess ups, and faux pas in my portfolio. I know what I like as a man, the things that I enjoy seeing, the things that call to me. But, this respect heuristic is as important to me as the racket is to Serena, the mic to Beyonce, the pen to Chimamanda. It is my way of making sure that the women that I interact with are comfortable being around me without any concern for their mental or physical well-being.
That’s it o. I don talk be dat.